Streaming war reaches NZ viewers
Disney+ doesn’t launch in New Zealand until Wednesday, but, with other newcomers, it is already re-shaping our entertainment landscape.
The launch of Disney’s streaming service will coincide with Sky pulling its two Disney channels, ending the local pay-TV broadcaster’s longtime monopoly on most of the Magic Kingdom’s content.
The arrival of Disney+ has also changed Netflix. In direct terms, Netflix has lost all content from Marvel, which is now part of the Disney stable.
And more broadly, it is part of a wider trend for studios and traditional TV networks to seize back control of their content to place on their own streaming services — which in turn has been the driver behind Netflix plunging itself into US$12 billion of debt as it commissioned original series willy-nilly to fill the content gap.
Amazon’s Prime Video and Apple TV+ (which soft-launched here on November 2) are taking the same original-content approach, to the tune of billions per year.
And next May, HBO will launch HBO Max as it expands its efforts to sell and stream hits like Chernobyl and Game
of Thrones to viewers directly. Initially, HBO Max will be US-only, but Sky — which uses HBO content as the bedrock for its two Rialto channels — will be watching nervously to see if it follows Disney+ in a global push.
The worries aren’t abstract. One line of thinking goes that punters will eventually tire of shelling out for a halfdozen different streaming services.
Disney, Netflix and Amazon are in a battle for global market share, and as TVNZ chief executive Kevin Kenrick recently observed, they are willing to absorb billions in losses during this entertainment land-grab. Looking ahead, it’s hard to see how local contenders will be able to compete for Hollywood and US TV content as worldwide deals are stitched up.
TVNZ’s answer was to budget $20m for local productions in 2020. Kenrick said he also wanted more free-to-air sport.
In March, Spark told the NZX it had begun the “formal process to select a growth partner for Lightbox” — a move seen as a precursor to offloading its entertainment streaming service (this week, a Spark spokesman said there were no developments to report).
Spark launched Spark Sport the same month. And Sky has also chosen to concentrate heavily on sport.
That’s a good near-term strategy, given Netflix has shown zero interest in sport, while the likes of Amazon, Google and Facebook are still only nibbling around the edges.